The Slaves of Paris Émile Gaboriau (free reads .TXT) 📖

of intense suffering. When the physician arrived, he was able to appear before him merely as a deeply anxious son.

“There is no hope for the Duke, I regret to say,” said the medical man, who felt that it was useless to keep Norbert in suspense. “There is a feeble chance of saving his life; but even should we succeed in doing so, his intellect will be irretrievably gone. This is a sad truth, but I feel it my duty to inform you of it. I will come again tomorrow.”

As the doctor left the room, Norbert threw himself into a chair, and clasped his hands round his head, which throbbed until it seemed as if it would burst. For more than half an hour he sat motionless, and then started to his feet with a stifled cry; for he remembered the bottle into which he had poured the poison, and which had been left on the table. Had anyone drunk from it? What had become of it? The agony of his mind gave him the necessary strength to descend to the dining-room; but the bottle was not on the table, nor was it in its customary place in the cupboard. The unhappy boy was looking for it everywhere, when the door silently opened, and Jean appeared on the threshold. The expression upon his young master’s face so startled the faithful old man that he nearly dropped the lighted candle that he carried in his hand.

“Why are you here, Master Norbert?” asked he in a voice that trembled with emotion.

“I was looking for⁠—I wanted to find⁠—,” faltered Norbert.

Jean’s suspicions at once became certainties; he walked up to his young master, and whispered in his ear⁠—

“You are looking for the Duke’s bottle of wine, are you not? It is quite safe; for I have taken it to my room. Tomorrow the contents shall be emptied away, and there will be no proof existing.”

Jean spoke in such a low voice that Norbert guessed rather than heard his words, and yet it seemed that the accusing whisper resounded like thunder through the Château, filling the old house from cellar to rooftree.

“Be quiet,” said he, laying his hand on the old man’s lips, and gazing around him with wild and affrighted glances.

A more complete confession could hardly have been made.

“Fear nothing, Master Norbert,” answered Jean; “we are quite alone. I know that there are words which should never be even breathed; and if I have ventured to speak, it was because it was my duty to warn you, and to inculcate on you the necessity of caution.”

Norbert was filled with horror when he saw that the old man believed him to be really guilty.

“Jean,” cried he, “you are wrong in your suspicions. I tell you that my father never tasted that wine. I snatched the glass from him before his lips had touched it. I flung it out into the courtyard, and, if you search, you will find its scattered fragments there still.”

“I am not sitting in judgment upon you; what you tell me to believe I am ready to accept.”

“Ah!” cried Norbert passionately, “he does not believe me; he thinks that I am guilty. I swear to you by all that I hold most sacred in this world, that I am innocent of this deed.”

The attached servant shook his head with a melancholy air.

“Of course, of course,” said he; “but it is for us two to save the honor of the house of Champdoce. Should it happen that any suspicions should be aroused, put all the guilt upon my shoulders. I will defend myself in a manner which will only fix the crime more firmly upon me. I will not throw away the bottle, but will retain it in my room, so that it may be found there, and its contents will be a damnatory evidence against me. What matters it how a poor man like me is sent out of the world? but with you it is different. You⁠—”

Norbert wrung his hands in abject despair; the sublime devotion of the old servant showed how firmly Jean believed in his criminality. He was about to assert his innocence further, when the loud sound of a closing door was heard above stairs.

“Hush!” said the old man; “someone approaches; we must not be seen whispering together like two plotters, for their suspicions would be certainly awakened; and I fear that my face or your eyes will reveal the secret. Quick, go upstairs, and endeavor, as soon as possible, to resume your calmness. I beg you not to compromise the honor of your name, which is in deadly peril.”

Without another word Norbert obeyed. His father was alone, and only the man to whom Jean had delegated the task of watcher remained by his bedside. At the sight of his young master he rose.

“The prescription which the doctor ordered to be made up has arrived,” said he. “I have administered a dose to the Duke, and it seems to me that the result has been favorable.”

Norbert drew up a heavy armchair to the foot of the bed, and took his seat upon it. From this position he could see his father’s face. His brain was dazed, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he could recall the chain of events which had drawn him towards the abyss into which he had so nearly been precipitated.

The veil had been taken from his eyes, and he now saw with perfect clearness and seemed again to hear his father’s voice as it roughly warned him that the woman he loved was a mere plotter, who cared not for him, but was scheming for his fortune and his name. Then he had been furiously indignant and looked upon the words as almost blasphemous, but now he saw that his father was right. How was it that he had not before seen that Diana was flinging herself in his way, and that all her affected openness and simplicity were merely the perfections of